Pedals to Paddles

I am back in Kerala now but will blog my way back to date bit by bit. A slow start wityh thsi one but here goes.
I am back in Delhi again another tour has been and gone and I am in a transitional phase between North India Tours and South India tours, from the hectic hustle bustle of the tours to having time to think and be alone in my peregrinations. It takes some getting used to.
The Singalila Ridge tour this year was brilliant, riding tough with some cracking descents great views and good company. White water rafting was a new addition to the tour schedules redefining the word “extreme” (I will give a little background here). All our group had some good WWR experience from African torrents to NZ fast flows, in comparison Rakesh can’t swim and is (was) scared of the water, while my experience was limited to a testing time in the Teesta river on a section of rapids that “even a Bengali child can do”. We arrived late to meet our guides who all sported piratical scars, with one fellow replete with a missing eye. Rakesh quizzed them on which was to be the most challenging route and came back ashen faced “extreme”.
The 1st lot of rapids almost had us all in the Teesta and found Rakesh in a brace position hidden at the front of the boat way out of his supposed position of weighing down the front end to keep the boat from toppling. After the initial scare it was all a bit tamer with some rough and tumble sections but hardly the Zambezi. Good fun with a few Hawaii 5- O team (showing my age here) sprints to make us (me) feel professional.
Left Darjeeling at a good time really, from the 15th November its curtains for some of my favourite drinking establishments as taxable alcoholic drinks are being banned in an attempt to deprive the West Bengal Government of revenues. The ban is part of a wider agitation in support of a separate state of Gorkhaland to be carved out of West Bengal. Already there is a payment strike on electricity bills and they hope this “double measure” will further pressurise those in Calcutta. On the good side though drinkers can still tipple on locally made arrack and millet beer, I hope the super -strong is back on the shelves though when I go back next year.